Event Log

In this section, the following is discussed:

• What is the purpose of Event Log Data Monitoring
• Setting up an Event Log Data Monitor

What is the purpose of Event Log Data Monitoring

Event logs are files that record the specific events that happen within the environment. The event logs are normally used to inform about important events in the running applications and subsystems such as errors, warnings, or information. The event log information can be used by administrators for troubleshooting problems. BizTalk360 offers administrators the functionality to set filters in event log data monitor on both BizTalk server and SQL server and configure rules based on their requirements. You can configure alerts for a particular event log/source(s) by defining a filter condition on the available event logs and request to be alerted when there are more than a specific number of alerts/warnings from the server.

For e.g., the administrator can set up a monitoring alarm like "Check the BizTalk server monitoring service every 30 minutes on all days in a week and warn me when the event id 5410 (BizTalk Server event) occurs more than 100 times and throw an error when the same event id occurs more than 200 times ". By setting up this alarm, whenever the event id 5410 occurs more than 100 times during a specific 30 minute time interval period, the administrator will receive a warning email notification (with the status as "Warning") from BizTalk360 explaining the current situation. If the value is less than 100, the administrator will receive email notifications with the status as "Success".

By setting up these alarms & notification mechanisms, the need to often log in to the BizTalk360 application and check for specific events becomes eliminated.

Setting up an Event Log Data Monitor

Follow the steps as shown below to create an Event Log Data Monitoring alarm:

• In case you did not do it earlier, follow the steps as mentioned in this section to create a Data Monitoring alarm
• Select the Use this alarm for Data Monitor Alerts checkbox to map the current alarm to Data Monitors. Only when this option is selected, the Notify on Success as well checkbox gets activated.
• The Notify on Success as well checkbox is optional for Data Monitoring, while the Use this alarm for Data Monitor Alerts option is mandatory.
• Click OK to save the alarm information

1. Choose Alarm - As mentioned above, the first step to set up event log data monitoring is to create an alarm. Once you have created the alarm, the alarm name will be displayed in the drop-down. Select the alarm that should be used for event log data monitoring purposes

2. Schedule Name - A meaningful name for the event log data monitor. Say, as per your requirement you want to filter condition for Runs Succeeded for every 15 minutes when the count. The monitor name can be set to "Runs Succeeded monitor"

3. Server Type - Select the server that needs to be monitored. You can select either BizTalk server or SQL server or both the servers based on your needs

4. Event Log Servers - Based on the server type selection, BizTalk360 lists the available servers configured in the environment

5. Event Type - There are three event types including error, warning, and information. Select the event type filters from the drop-down

6. Event Log - Select from the event logs configured in the Advanced Event Viewer Settings. Event logs like Application, System, Security, etc are manually configured in BizTalk360 Settings

7. Event Source - Lists the event sources configured in the Advanced Event Viewer Settings

8. Match - This option needs to be selected for the filter options that are selected in the above fields. By default, the value of this field is "All" . ALL works as And condition which checks for all the conditions to be true, ANY works as OR condition which checks for anyone condition to be true .  User can add up 5 main conditions and each condition can hold up to 3 sub-conditions using AND , OR Operator . For an instance multiple conditions are configured as below  (condition 1 = event id is between 1111 to 2345 ) ,(condition 2= Event id = 4567) then ANY checks for event id between 1111 to 2345 or event id 4567 if anything is available in table then count is considered. 

9.  Based on only Query result count 
   • Without date/time filter - Selecting this option will execute the query without applying any date time filter. i.e All the data will consider for query execution.
   • With date/time range - Selecting this option will apply the TimeStamp filter for query execution. ( The values configured for setting trigger time, Set Monitoring Times ->At What Time, will be used for TimeStamp filter ). Say, for instance, if the data monitor is scheduled to execute every hour from 9 AM to 6 PM, and currently the time is 11:59 AM, during the next run of the data monitor at 12 PM, it will look for the query results between 11:01 AM and 11:59 AM and generate the results.

10. Warning Threshold - Set the value when you want to be notified when there is a warning. First, select the Operator (> or =) and then set the warning value. For e.g., When the number of successful runs is > 100, throw a warning

11. Error Threshold - Set the value when you want to be notified when there is an error. First, select the Operator (> or =) and then set the error value. For e.g., When the number of successful runs is > 50, throw an error

12. Frequency (How often you want to monitor) - Select the duration how often you want to monitor for Successful Runs. The options are - Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. Depending on the selection, you can add further filter criteria on how often you want to monitor

• Daily - will set up the data monitor to execute every day
• Weekly - The data monitor will execute on the selected days of the week (Every Day, Monday-Friday, or the selected day of choice). To add a single day of the week, click the control and select the day of your choice
• Monthly - The data monitor will execute on the selected day of the month. To add a specific day of the month, enter the date in the space provided or select the date from the drop-down
• If a particular day is not present in the month (say, 29th Feb), the system will skip that month and generate the results on the specified day in the next month

14. When during the day - Select the time when the data monitor must execute on a particular day during business hours. You can customize your business hours by selecting the values from the Business Day Start and Business Day End options.
    By default, the business day start time is 9 AM and business day end time is 5 PM
    Depending on the business hour selection, the following options are available when you want the data monitor to execute on a particular day

15. At what time? - If this option is chosen, the data monitor will execute depending on the value chosen in the Business Day End field. For e.g, if the business end time specified is 5 PM (default value), the data monitor will execute exactly at 5 PM
    Monitor every X minutes/hours - You can define specific intervals during the business hours when the data monitor should execute. The options available are Minutes and Hours

16. Frequency

• Minutes - Select the number of minutes after which the data monitor should execute. E.g., 30 minutes means the data monitor will execute once every 30 minutes
• The minimum time interval supported is 15 minutes, which means the data monitor will execute 4 times (15 minutes x 4 = 60 minutes) in an hour
• Hours - Select the number of hours after which the data monitor should execute during the business hours. E.g., 2 hours means the data monitor will execute once in 2 hours between 9 AM and 5 PM
• The minimum time interval supported is 1 hour
  

17. Advanced - This section can be used to define advanced settings for data monitoring. You can define a date range (from the date and to date) when you want the data monitor to execute. You can set up a data monitor to start, say, on a Monday and end on the next Tuesday. In addition to this, you can set up the other settings mentioned above in the previous steps. This means the data monitor will only start to run next Monday and will not execute after Tuesday
By default, the Advanced section will be in a Collapsed state. Click the '>' button to expand the Advanced section and make the settings.

18. Summary - The summary information will automatically be populated based on the information selected in the previous columns

19. Save  - Once all the values are selected in the previous steps, click Save & Close to save the settings